7:00 AM | Arctic front slides through today...colder air arrives tonight and Thursday and then sticks around...comet landing update

6-Day Forecast

Today

Early morning low clouds, fog and drizzle will gradually give way to partly sunny skies, becoming breezy later today, but still on the mild side, highs near 60 degrees

Tonight

Mostly clear, quite breezy and turning noticeably colder, lows in the low-to-mid 30’s

Thursday

Mostly cloudy, breezy, cold, mid-to-upper 40’s

Thursday Night

Mostly cloudy, cold, chance for snow showers, near 30

Friday

Becoming mostly sunny after a possible early snow shower, cold, low 40’s

Saturday

Mostly sunny, cold, low 40’s

Sunday

Mostly cloudy, cold, chance for rain or snow at night, low-to-mid 40’s

Monday

Mostly cloudy, cold, chance for rain or snow, low 40’s

Discussion

An Arctic front will slide through the area today and this will set the wheels in motion for a rather sustained pattern change to “colder-than-normal” in the Mid-Atlantic region as we move through the rest of November. A cooling breeze will pick up later today out the northwest and continue through the night and this will begin to usher in the Arctic air mass that first invaded the Rockies and Central Plains earlier in the week. A secondary push of colder air will arrive on Thursday and this will help to confine temperatures tomorrow to the 40's and an area of moisture associated with this second front will ride up the coast tomorrow night and possibly generate some snow shower activity in the I-95 corridor. Highs on Friday and on both weekend days will remain at below normal levels generally in the 40's and then attention will turn towards the southern states as a storm could pull out of the Gulf of Mexico region early next week and bring rain or snow to the Mid-Atlantic region.

Elsewhere in the universe, the Philae lander separated from the mother ship Rosetta around 3:30 a.m. ET to begin its 7-hour descent to the comet known as 67P. Philae, which has spent 10 years fixed to the side of Rosetta during the journey across the solar system, cannot be steered. Once it was released, it was on its own. Mission controllers now face the long wait for Philae to reach the surface. The comet is so far away that a confirmation signal relayed from Rosetta, which remains in orbit around the comet, will take nearly half an hour to reach Earth. Scientists should have word around 11 a.m. ET. For more information on this story visit our "Space Events" page on the weather web site at http://vencoreweather.com/2014/11/10/1045-am-spacecraft-to-land-on-comet-early-wednesday-after-10-year-flight/.

Video

httpv://youtu.be/DViEhk4_VvE